{"id":123639,"date":"2019-04-11T14:17:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T18:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=123639"},"modified":"2024-07-01T17:00:01","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T21:00:01","slug":"exacting-empathetic-authentic-kelley-romano-receives-kroepsch-teaching-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2019\/04\/11\/exacting-empathetic-authentic-kelley-romano-receives-kroepsch-teaching-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Exacting, empathetic, authentic: Kelley-Romano receives Kroepsch teaching award"},"content":{"rendered":"

One class session with rhetoric professor Stephanie Kelley-Romano in 2015 was enough to turn Claire Sullivan \u201919 into a rhetoric major.<\/p>\n

Sullivan\u2019s first-ever class at Bates, it was the opening session in the course \u201cWhat Is Rhetoric?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelley-Romano showed music videos by female country artists, including RaeLynn\u2019s \u201cGod Made Girls\u201d \u2014 which features lyrics like, \u201cSomebody\u2019s gotta be the one to cry \/ Somebody\u2019s gotta let him drive \u2026 So God made girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelley-Romano then struck up a discussion encompassing heteronormativity, gender roles, and who\u2019s excluded from a worldview like RaeLynn\u2019s. \u201cShe just went off on the absurdity of the rhetorical implications of this music video<\/a>,\u201d says Sullivan of Montville, N.J. The class \u201cmade me want to be a rhetoric major because she just had so much passion and enthusiasm for it.<\/p>\n

\"Stephanie<\/a>

Stephanie Kelley-Romano leads a “Television Criticism” class on March 6, 2019. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cShe emphasized the way we look at certain cultural texts. When you critically analyze them, you get so much more out of them and see their cultural and sociological implications in a really different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Praised as a teacher who\u2019s exacting, empathetic, authentic \u2014 and passionate about her field \u2014 Kelley-Romano has received the college\u2019s 2019 Ruth M. and Robert H. Kroepsch Award<\/a> for Excellence in Teaching.<\/p>\n

Associate professor and chair of the rhetoric, film, and screen studies department, Kelley-Romano is known at Bates and beyond for her professional focus on topics in the popular consciousness \u2014 the rhetoric of television, conspiracy theories, and abductions by space aliens, to name a few. Her biennial course on presidential campaign rhetoric<\/a> is built around a mock campaign that affords an intensely hands-on, multidisciplinary experience for students.<\/p>\n

She has led public workshops on spotting fake news, analyzed for the local newspaper a debate between candidates for Maine\u2019s 2nd District congressional seat (including Jared Golden \u201811, who ultimately won), and, with math professor Meredith Greer, she is modeling how conspiracy theories spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s infectious to be in a classroom with somebody who is excited about what they\u2019re teaching.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cRhetoric allows us to understand how realities are created,\u201d says Kelley-Romano. \u201cWhy we call someone a survivor, as opposed to a victim, matters. It matters who we define as terrorists. The way we criminalize drug use by some but construct it as a health crisis when it affects other people, matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s important to allow students to see that just because something is in a history book or in a newspaper,\u201d that doesn\u2019t necessarily make it true, she says. \u201cObjectivity is a little looser than they may have been led to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Sullivan, it was in her first class at Bates that Molly Chisholm \u201917 of Boston first encountered Kelley-Romano. As with Sullivan, the professor\u2019s enthusiasm made a big impression. \u201cIt\u2019s infectious to be in a classroom with somebody who is excited about what they\u2019re teaching,\u201d Chisholm says. \u201cYou\u2019re automatically engaged because she\u2019s<\/em> so engaged and so happy to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Historically

Stephanie Kelley-Romano talks with Molly Chisholm ’17, who portrayed a Republican candidate for U.S. president in a fall 2016 campaign rhetoric course. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI love watching students gain confidence and skills,\u201d Kelley-Romano says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m trying to teach a critical-thinking skill or to get them to understand the logical organization for a paper \u2014 when I see it actually happen, that\u2019s a great feeling. And then to see it again and again, and see the change in them from the beginning to the end, is just so satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds, \u201cIf I honor and respect their process of coming into knowledge and coming into themselves, and just try to help that along, then it gives them so much agency. And they\u2019re so much more invested in doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Kelley-Romano \u201cthere\u2019s an element of genuineness\u201d that\u2019s uncommon, says Sullivan. \u201cShe lets us see who she is as a person.\u201d For example, Kelley-Romano\u2019s sons, 16-year-old George and 14-year-old Richie, are no strangers to Pettigrew Hall (and they also help keep their mother in tune with pop-culture trends).<\/p>\n

\u201cIn return, she expects us to show her who we are as people,\u201d Sullivan says. \u201cShe just cares so much about understanding where her students are coming from and what makes them people, more than just students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Members<\/a>

Kelley-Romano listens to a remark by a fellow faculty panelist during a viewing and discussion of the televised inauguration of President Donald Trump in January 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cShe has a great degree of empathy, and I think that\u2019s always present in her pedagogy,\u201d says Kelley-Romano\u2019s colleague Charles Nero, Benjamin E. Mays \u201920 Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies. \u201cIf you talk about the importance of care in the process of teaching, Stephanie exemplifies that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of that empathy may be traceable to Kelley-Romano\u2019s<\/a> undergraduate experience. A first-generation-to-college student at Emerson University, she took away a certain understanding of the uncertainties, insecurities, and feelings of isolation that can come with being a first-gen. She\u2019s not shy about putting that understanding to work.<\/p>\n

Openness about her own experience is a way to help put students at ease with their situations. \u201cTo articulate those fears or seeming insecurities and make them laughable, and to own them,\u201d Kelley-Romano says, \u201cmakes students feel a lot more comfortable\u201d \u2014 helps them \u201csee that on the inside everybody can be silly, or insecure, or uncertain, and that it\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of which is to suggest that she is a pushover. \u201cShe wants, probably demands, that her students excel,\u201d Nero says. \u201cShe sees her role as giving them the tools to excel, and she thinks a lot about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think that when students leave her class, they\u2019re aware that whatever happened \u2014 the good, the bad, the ugly \u2014 it\u2019s on them. She encourages responsibility.\u201d Nero adds, \u201cI would daresay that she is brilliant as a pedagogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2017 graduate, Gabe Nott experienced those high expectations as he honed his senior thesis under Kelley-Romano\u2019s guidance. Now a New York City resident, Nott was writing about the TV program Last Week Tonight<\/em>, hosted by comedian John Oliver, and the implications of news-focused comedy for civic discourse.<\/p>\n

“It took me a while to figure out my argument for my thesis,\u201d says Nott. \u201cEvery time I thought knew what angle I was going to take, she\u2019d come back with a question I wasn\u2019t able to answer. Honestly, it was pretty frustrating.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, when I finally got there, I realized that all that prodding and pushing helped me craft a more incisive analysis\u201d that even transcended Oliver to shed light on how, Nott says, \u201cwe as a country talk about politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Associate

Michaela Britt \u201917, Molly Chisholm ’17, and Brennen Malone \u201917 confer with Kelley-Romano during the 2016 campaign rhetoric course. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

He adds, \u201cWhen I finally figured it out, she was as excited as I was. All that just made me feel like she was really invested in helping me become the best scholar I could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullivan took the fall 2018 edition of Kelley-Romano\u2019s campaign rhetoric course. The mock campaign involves students in just about every aspect of a campaign that involves communications \u2014 which is pretty much all of it, from developing a platform to writing ads and speeches to holding debates to mounting a crisis response.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mock campaign felt so practical,\u201d says Sullivan, who played the role of the Democratic vice presidential candidate. She plans to work for a real campaign after graduation as a prelude to a career in law or politics. \u201cShe expected a professional quality of us, and so it felt like we were running a real campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds, \u201cIt allowed us to really think about how political campaigns craft narratives, which is obviously a huge part of the study of rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fictional presidential candidate for the Democrats was a military veteran, as was his wife. \u201cHe was Jewish, and so we talked about his Jewish identity a lot. We made my character queer and married to a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Historically

Rhetoric professor Stephanie Kelley-Romano meets in her office with Kathryn Carew ’17 of Falmouth, Maine, in 2016. Carew and Kelley-Romano published her senior thesis, a study of Donald Trump and the “birther\u201d movement, in the Journal of Hate Studies<\/em>. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sullivan says, \u201cIt got us thinking about how we talk about identities, and how those identities are perceived and portrayed to a greater public.\u201d Developing candidate personas \u2014 their backgrounds, beliefs, relationships \u2014 reflected an important emphasis in the Bates approach to teaching rhetoric: an understanding of intersectionality, how different aspects of identity relate to one another and how they are treated in communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focuses on gender, race, sexuality, and ethnicity are crucial organizing principles to our major,\u201d Nero says. \u201cStephanie has been fundamental in the creation of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years after the RaeLynn revelation, Kelley-Romano advised Sullivan on her senior thesis, which looks at the role of conspiracy rhetoric in the Fox News coverage of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings \u2014 a research project they hope to publish together.<\/p>\n

The relationship has meant a lot to her, Sullivan says. \u201cTo have somebody who has known me throughout the entire four years, academically and a little bit outside the academics, has been a very comforting experience.\u201d Even after Bates, \u201cI know that she\u2019ll really be there for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Associate<\/a>

A fall 2018 session of her course “What is Rhetoric?” features Kelley-Romano using a Halloween costume to riff on her research into alien abduction stories. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She’s known off campus for research on campaign rhetoric and alien abduction stories, but her students love her for keeping things real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":123740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,11011,133,14,195,11009],"tags":[5091,10754,8163],"class_list":["post-123639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-awards","category-creativity","category-faculty-staff","category-news-politics","category-the-college","tag-kroepsch-award-for-excellence-in-teaching","tag-rhetoric-film-and-screen-studies","tag-stephanie-kelley-romano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123639"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124518,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123639\/revisions\/124518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}